causes parents to believe they have someone to turn to when stressors arise, which, in turn, fosters feelings of security and being valued (Hennon et al., 2007).
Scholars differ in the types of social support they identify, but most distinguish between capacities to communicate caring or emotional support and concrete assistance that helps parents’ to deal with tasks and responsibilities or instrumental support (Hennon et al., 2009; Hennon et al., 2008). Although conceptualized as separate phenomena to clarify their meaning, emotional and instrumental support are not always mutually exclusive. The two types of support often do overlap, as demonstrated when Tiffany’s aunt quickly cancels her cherished plans to play golf with her friends to assist Tiffany and her children. Her niece needs her help to babysit Pamela and Joey due to emergency circumstances at her workplace that require her presence. The child care that Tiffany’s aunt provides is instrumental support, while her selfless actions to postpone her golf plans on short notice also provides emotional support to her niece.
The parents’ marital relationship also is a critical, immediate aspect of social networks from which potential sources of support can increase or decrease the vulnerability of parents (Boss, 2002; Crnic et al., 2005; Crnic & Low, 2002; Gerard et al., 2008; Lin et al., 2017; Ontai et al., 2008). Scholars have frequently concluded that the role of potential social support beyond family boundaries is of secondary importance to the role of marital relationships. Research indicates that maternal stress is reduced when a spouse uses humor and listening skills to smooth over difficult moments that frustrate their partner (Lamb, 2013). In fact, the overall importance of husbands supporting their wives cannot be overstated because mothers continue to have more responsibility, more involvement, and experience greater parental stress from parenting (Crnic et al., 2005; Hennon et al., 2007; Lamb, 2013). Marriages characterized by a lack of shared housework and caregiving, low support from fathers, marital dissatisfaction, marital hostility, and high marital conflict function as negative resources that add to parental stress (Deater-Deckard et al., 2005; Gerard et al., 2008; Grych, Oxtoby, & Lynn, 2013; Lin et al., 2017).
Social support from outside the family also has the potential to ameliorate parental depression and increase coping abilities during times of stress (Hennon et al., 2008; Lamb, 2013). Support from outside family boundaries becomes especially important when parents do not have adult partners, the involvement of partners in caregiving is inadequate, or alternative significant others (e.g., older siblings) are not available (Ontai et al., 2008). Moreover, social support has the potential to affect the quality of parenting indirectly by enhancing, maintaining, or impairing the emotional well-being of mothers and fathers (Lamb, 2013). Support that reduces parental distress assists parents to be more nurturant and rational and to use more moderate forms of control, while avoiding harsh or rejecting forms of discipline (Crnic et al., 2005 Deater-Deckard, 2004).
Consistent with conceptions of resources and vulnerabilities, an important idea is that social networks are not always supportive but may function to increase parental stress. For example, Tiffany’s mother is good at providing instrumental support in emergencies (e.g., picking up the children, helping out with bills between paydays). In contrast, her mother was not in favor of Tiffany’s divorce and tended to agree with Tiffany’s ex-husband about issues within their co-parenting relationship. Tiffany can’t rely on her mother for emotional support on these issues and feels that her mother wants her to return to an unsupportive, ex-husband. Consequently, the relationship between Tiffany and her mother has become strained similar to the stress, conflict, frustration, and disappointment that families of unmarried teenage mothers experience sometimes with their own mothers (Devereux et al., 2009; Huang et al., 2014). The social support provided by parents and extended kin members may include judgmental and restrictive qualities that increase the stress of the new parent significantly. For teenage mothers, effective social support should involve providing assistance, while also continuing to foster autonomy that acknowledges the young parent’s viewpoints, accepts the teen’s feelings, and resists being too intrusive into the young person’s life (Devereux et al., 2009; Huang et al., 2014). Such an approach has the potential to reduce stress, provide assistance for the demands of parenting, and promotes the long-term psychosocial maturity of young parents.
Parental Coping
From a family stress and crisis perspective, coping goes beyond being a potential resource by describing how parents can actually manage, endure, and recover from stressors (Patterson, 2002). Instead of being a potential ability, the process of coping involves actively seeking to maintain the status quo or to achieve new levels of family organization. Coping by parents involves making actual responses to or redefining the circumstances at hand (Dewar, 2016; Jones et al., 2009). Specific coping strategies are not inherently adaptive or maladaptive, but are useful to a degree that depends on the precise nature of the circumstances that are faced (Dewar, 2016; Hennon et al., 2009; Patterson, 2002).
The process of coping that involves using available resources and the parents’ perceptions are conceptually distinct phenomena but often are interrelated in reality for many circumstances. The types of coping responses that parents use can vary with the specific stressor or crisis that is faced (Hennon et al., 2007; Hennon et al., 2008). For example, parents who face serious financial stress that can add to parenting distress, are better prepared to deal with this circumstance when they maintain positive self-evaluations, beliefs in their own mastery, and abilities to take charge of and resolve their financial difficulties. Coping strategies for chronic economic problems include financial problem solving, receiving social support (e.g., from a relative or financial counselor), acceptance of the situation, positive thinking, finding supplemental employment, and seeking positive distractions at select times to manage the accumulation of parental stress (Dewar, 2016; Morse et al., 2014).
Several additional strategies for coping with parental stress, such as cognitive coping, can be found in the literature on parent–child relationships. Cognitive strategies include passive approaches like denial or avoidance, as well as active approaches involving positive reappraisal and problem-focused response strategies (Crnic et al., 2005; Crnic & Low, 2002; Dewar, 2016). Parents who face economic problems or children with mental health issues can cope (i.e., reduce their stress) through positive reframing, problem solving, clear communication, affective responsiveness, and behavioral control (Dewar, 2016; Morse et al., 2014). These “active” coping strategies are more successful for reducing stress and restoring constructive parental behaviors than are “passive” cognitions involving a fatalistic acceptance of one’s circumstances. Other coping strategies involve drawing on or orchestrating resources from the social environment, perhaps in the form of parent education, to learn more about high-quality parenting, child development, and how stress can be managed (Dewar, 2016; Hennon et al., 2007; Hennon et al., 2013).
Parents are more likely to become less stressed when they can become more capable of practicing better parenting through the actual use of social support that is available (DeHoff et al., 2016). Moreover, exposure to parent education that provides knowledge of child development, realistic expectations for the young, and the development of quality parenting skills can be effective means of coping. Subsequently, these parents are likely to be more capable of accessing resources, managing their responses, and developing the necessary social support networks to buffer stress levels and maintain high quality parenting (Hennon et al., 2007). Critical attributes for parental coping are the willingness and ability to take advantage of potential parenting resources and available social support (Hennon et al., 2013). For example, a single mother who is struggling to supervise a delinquent teenage son might gain assistance from her social network of parents, siblings, neighborhood friends, local social service agencies, online sources, and family life educators (DeHoff et al., 2016). Similarly, Tiffany is fortunate to have her aunt who not only provides emotional support and direct instrumental assistance through childcare, but also helps Tiffany to connect with community resources (e.g., parental groups, agencies, and online resources that specialize in autism). However, failure to actually use potential resources may occur if parent’s feelings of pride, embarrassment, personal responsibility or exhaustion become obstacles to making use of these
